Preludes to tragedy: Pummyra
by Dr Facer
Summary: Escaping slavery after years inside the thundranium mines, Pummyra and Bengali organize a rebel group to challenge Mumm-Ra's evil rule and fight for the freedom of their people. *One shot related to Embracing Dark Desires.


Disclaimer: Thundercats and all related character don't belong to me.

Preludes to tragedy,

Pummyra: Fragments of rebellion.

By

Dr Facer

0-0-0

The tunnel was small, absolutely dark, humid and very, very cold; and she and the forty Thunderians that followed her in line had been crawling inside it for what seemed like hours. Yet she and the others would never think of going back to the mine they had finally escaped. No, not when their chance at freedom was so close.

They continued crawling in silence for a long time until she finally reached the tiny ray of light streaming through the cracked wall at the end of the tunnel. This light and the fresh air that seeped through the fissure immediately revived her and renewed her hope for freedom. She peered out through the small opening and saw nothing but the rocky side of the mountain being bathed in sunshine.

"We're free!" she announced to the others behind her. "We just have to get through this wall!"

Her announcement was met with cheer-filled whispers and muffled expressions of relief. The young woman's hands balled into fists at their reaction, and she swore that someday, no Thunderian would have to go through anything like this again; no Thunderian would be reduced to a slave who couldn't even express happiness openly.

"I'll take care of the wall, Pummyra," a male voice offered right behind her. "Just give me some room so I can get to the front."

"Be my guest, Bengali," she answered, pressing herself against the cold stone wall of the tunnel as much as she could, feeling him struggle as he somehow managed to squeeze past her.

"It would be faster if they hadn't taken my Hammer of Thundera from me… Mutant bastards," Bengali complained as he used an old shovel to enlarge the opening. His progress was slow but steady and despite his complaints he knew he'd have a hole large enough for them to pass through in a matter of minutes.

"Please wait a little more, everyone, we'll be out of here soon," Pummyra called back as she watched her best friend work, counting on her words to keep the other fugitives from rushing forward before they had enough room to leave the tunnel.

And as she waited for her Thunderian brothers to be able to flee from the dark tunnel, her resolve to put her old plan about forming a rebellion against Mumm-Ra's tyrannical rule did nothing but grow stronger.

0-0

New Thundera's large meridian forest was vast and thick with tall trees and other vegetation, and it had been the home of a group of Warrior Maidens who had come to New Thundera in order to start a small colony of their own. Unfortunately for the Amazons, they arrived just a few months before Mumm-Ra rose to power, and most of them had been killed during the battle; the few survivors had eventually been sacrificed, after suffering through weeks of inhuman torture.

Before perishing, however, the Warrior Maidens had managed to construct a large building, concealed beneath four massive trees which somehow grew intertwined with each other. This construction had been left mostly untouched by the Mutants who killed the Amazons, and it was here that Pummyra, Bengali and the forty fugitives had taken refuge for the last week.

"We must do something," Pummyra asserted to the fugitives, who were sitting silently all around her. "As you know, I am a healer, I live to help people and because of my calling I can't tolerate this situation anymore! Our friends, our families are slowly dying under Mumm-Ra's rule, we have to help them; we are the only ones we can!"

"Do you want us to challenge the Mutants and Mumm-Ra?" a young Thunderian from the leopard clan asked. "That's insane! We're too few to go against them and we don't even have weapons to fight!"

"If you want weapons, I can take care of it," Bengali boasted. He had avoided entering the conversation, letting Pummyra do the talking, but he wouldn't let cowardice spread. If giving their fugitive companions weapons would help them muster the courage they needed to fight against Mumm-Ra's Mutant army, then he would give them weapons. "Or you doubt my skill as a master blacksmith?"

"I don't doubt you," the young leopard said. "But fighting head on will only get us all killed, surely you two Thundercats can see that!"

"That is why we won't attack them directly," Bengali explained with a smirk. "It's true that we can't win if we fight them head on, so we'll be a thorn in Mumm-Ra and the Mutant's side until we have the strength to defeat them; we'll use guerrilla strategies against them!"

"It is the best chance we have to make a difference," Pummyra insisted. "And our first objective will be to rescue as many Thunderians as possible. We can do this, my friends, and if we are intelligent enough we can succeed, I'm sure of it! Will you join me and Bengali? Will you become a part of our rebellion?"

Low murmurs filled the hall the fugitives were gathered in, and most were of approval for Pummyra and Bengali's idea. The few dissident voices spoke more out of fear than lack of trust, but eventually they all changed into a general agreement that little by little won strength until each and every one of the forty fugitives raised a hand and shouted a fully convinced, "Yes!"

"The Thundercat nobles would never resort to guerrilla tactics, though," an older Thunderian from the bobcat clan lamented. "I say we refrain from using the royal insignia as our symbol, out of respect to them."

"We should use the claw mark of the Puma clan instead," the young leopard who spoke first suggested in a serious tone as he glanced at Pummyra, hoping to find her approval. "If the one who started our rebellion belongs to that clan, it makes sense that we honor it."

To the young leopard's surprise, Pummyra smiled and nodded in agreement.

0-0

"This is it, our first strike against those ugly freaks!" Bengali whispered excitedly.

"Let's see if all our planning pays off," Pummyra answered in a low murmur.

"It will," the tiger assured her. "Once this mission is over we'll have released twenty more Thunderians who will hopefully join our ranks."

"Yes, you're right," Pummyra smiled. "Fine, give the signal as soon as the Mutant transport is where we want it."

Bengali nodded and reached for the piece of mirror he kept under his belt. Once he had it firmly in his hand he slid from behind the large tree he had used as cover and crawled to the side of the road that the rebels were watching over. The white tiger had learned from a farmer about the transfer of twenty Thunderians from one of the seaside cities to the Thundranium mines, and had decided along with Pummyra that they had to rescue the captives before they reached their destination. Bengali had also learned that the Mutant transport would cross a forest path he and his men were quite familiar with, which gave them a huge advantage over the mutants, and this was the main reason Pummyra had agreed to try to save the prisoners.

The noise of the approaching transport engine grew louder and Bengali stopped thinking about the whys of the mission and instead focused on its success. Paying close attention, he waited until the huge, slow vehicle had entered the crevice between a stand of tall trees. Then he shone his mirror piece in the sunlight twice in quick succession.

That was all it took for the rebels to take action; when the transport was in the deepest part of the crevice the tree in front of it fell with a loud crash, immediately followed by the one behind it, effectively trapping the large vehicle. Five Mutants of the Jackal Clan climbed out of the transport, each one armed with a Plundarrian crossbow which they used to blindly shoot arrows into the forest around them, hoping to hit whoever it was that had trapped them; they kept firing for several seconds until suddenly a whirling sound cut through the screams of the canines, and three sets of bolas shot out from within the thick woods, entangling the same number of Jackal men. The two other canine warriors didn't have time to help their fallen comrades, as they were almost immediately immobilized by a large net that fell on them from the branches above.

"Good job, men!" Bengali called as he walked out of the deep green where he'd been hiding. Everything was going well so far, all that remained was to free the prisoners and they could all go back to the hideout.

Intending to release the captive Thunderians, both Bengali and Pummyra walked to the back of the transport and, with a little struggle, managed to open the heavily fortified back doors, revealing something the rebels and the two Thundercats would never forget.

The cargo box of the Mutant transport was splattered with blood; every Thunderian had apparently been beaten to death at some point during the trip to the mines; many were battered so badly that their faces were unrecognizable, bloody masks of pain.

"Are they dead?" Bengali asked, forcing himself not to look away in case one of the Thunderians in there gave a sign of life but not entering the transport.

Pummyra, on the other hand, did not hesitate to climb in, and was already looking at each of the victims carefully as she made her way to the other end of the cargo box, making mental notes of what medical treatment she would have to give the survivors.

"Most of them still live, Bengali," Pummyra finally answered to her friend's earlier question. "But we'll have to take them to base so I can treat them. Get some of our people to help us move them out of here!"

"I'm on it!" the white tiger said and hurried out of Pummyra's sight, though she could still hear him calling to the other rebels.

The healer turned then to look at the last prisoner who, unlike the others, had actually been chained to his seat. She could understand why, as he was very tall and muscular, and probably very strong. His face was low, and she assumed he was unconscious but suddenly, the man straightened in his chair and shot his hand at her so fast she could not react before he grabbed her by the arm in a steely grip.

"Filthy mutant!" the man yelled as he tried to stand up, straining with whatever little strength he had left.

"Calm down, I'm here to help you!" Pummyra said, a bit louder than what she had intended but she couldn't help it, the man's grip was actually hurting her a little.

"...Help?" the stranger asked, his grip loosening as his eyes finally focused on the person he was holding, only to find a startled female Thunderian standing right in front of him. "You're not... a mutant."

"No, I'm not," The puma said as she retrieved her hand. "I am Pummyra, a healer. I'm here to help you, what's your name?"

"My name… is O-Celot," the tall Thunderian answered. His faltering strength failed him then and he fell back in his seat, completely unconscious.

Leaving the unconscious O-Celot behind her, Pummyra thought about how strange it had been for only five Jackal men to be guarding the transport, with no air support at all; could they really have gotten that lucky? What if…?

"Here's the help," Bengali announced suddenly. "What do you want us to do?"

Distracted by Bengali's arrival, Pummyra put aside what she had been thinking, too involved in the more pressing matter of directing her men into the proper way of moving the wounded prisoners out of the transport to reflect on the lack of resistance they had just faced. Latter she concluded that perhaps they really had gotten lucky.

0-0

Ever since forming their guerrilla group Bengali had been trying to give the members of the rebellion some basic combat training; unfortunately, he had discovered his ability to teach others how to fight was nearly nonexistent, and had found himself relying on teaching only the most basic of the exercises Panthro had showed him a few years back. This however, would not help their group much if they ever had to fight the mutants in a real battle.

It wasn't that the rebels were completely unskilled at fighting; they were enthusiastic and had managed to more or less master the basics of combat. Some of them were good with the bow while others were good with the staff or other weapons, but in general, many of them could not fight a Mutant soldier and live, at least not at this point.

This worried him; if they were ever under attack they would not be able to properly counterattack. The high spirits of his men, and of all the rebels in general, gave Bengali some hope but… there was also him, the tall guy with the extremely aggressive attitude Pummyra had found chained to his seat a month ago. He had healed rather quickly, as his wounds were superficial and his condition was more the result of exhaustion than injury. He had agreed to join the rebellion immediately, and had been helping Bengali set up a furnace to forge new weapons and armor from the metal of the Mutant transports or vehicles they had managed to steal. The tall man was a Forge-master and had proven quite good at blacksmithing; Bengali had tried to befriend him through this interest that they shared but it had been useless. O-Celot would simply not accept his friendship or that of any other rebel. He would lend a hand when asked to, and then would go back to spending most of his time doing whatever the hell it was he did on the forge they had installed in the furnace room.

"And he's missing training again because of it," muttered Bengali as he gazed at the workshop they had built behind the base, at the other side of the clearing they normally used for combat practice. "Well, not today."

Saying this, Bengali asked one of his men to go and tell O-Celot he was needed in combat practice. The white tiger knew the tall man would get angry at being interrupted, but he didn't care; discipline and unity was necessary for their group to succeed, and O-Celot actually needed to participate in exercises like this, it would probably help him work out all the negative emotions he had out of his system.

Bengali couldn't keep from smirking when he saw the tall Thunderian emerge from the workshop. As he had expected, the other man didn't look happy at all. What he did not expect was to see O-Celot carrying a massive sledgehammer, more like a mace, with him.

"I heard you wanted to see me, Captain Bengali," O-Celot said as he rested the long handle of his tool against his right shoulder. "Well, here I am. What can I do for you?"

"You need to participate in our combat practice," the white tiger commanded.

"No, I don't," the Forge-master replied as he let the head of his tool hit the ground with a loud thud. "Any Mutant that crosses my path will be crushed by this beauty. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have work to do."

"Jackal Men and Monkey Men could easily dodge that," Bengali countered. "Let's say you miss your target, what then?"

"They won't dodge it."

"I could," the tiger asserted as he shrugged his shoulders and smiled. Bengali was quite aware that many other rebels were gathering at the edge of the training spot, obviously hoping to see a fight of some sort and that was perfect; if he lost in front of the others, O-Celot would have to do as Bengali asked and join combat practice with everyone else.

The tall man smirked at the tiger's statements. "Forgive me for saying this, but I really doubt it."

"Want to try to hit me with that?" Bengali challenged with a smirk that mirrored the one on the tall man's face. "If I dodge ten times you'll have to agree to take combat practice with us."

"And if you don't you will have to be my striker after General Pummyra heals you," O-Celot taunted. "I can always use a good apprentice." (1)

"I thought strikers were the ones who used big hammers," the white tiger joked. "Well then, I'm re…"

Bengali couldn't finish what he wanted to say, as he was interrupted mid-sentence by a sledgehammer swung in his direction, which he barely dodged with a quick leap back.

"That's one time I've dodged you; only nine more and you'll lose our little bet," Bengali said, quickly recovering from the surprise O-Celot's first move had caused him; he hadn't expected someone of his size to be able to move that fast.

"First and last!" The Forge-master raised his sledgehammer and brought it down again in a flash, not really paying attention to the angle of his swing, sure that if he hit fast enough, Bengali would not be able to dodge it.

But the white tiger did, he simply sidestepped the blow, annoying O-Celot further.

"That's two," Bengali added, "eight more to go."

The Forge master did not answer and instead tried to hit the white tiger again, missing him every time while Bengali kept count of his failed attempts.

"And that's ten!" Bengali announced, much to the enjoyment of the rebels who had watched the whole thing, when O-Celot finally stopped for a moment, panting heavily after his wasted efforts had exhausted him.

"You know, you're not half bad… you do use too many unnecessary moves and you have no strategy at all, but you could really be a very dangerous opponent with that hammer if you trained, and if you controlled your anger while fighting, of course."

The Forge-master stared at Bengali and tried to feel angry at being humiliated in front of the other rebels but instead ended up paying close attention to those words. Some of what Bengali had said was true; he'd realized thanks to this exercise that he was not a good fighter but controlling his anger? That was something O-Celot would not do. After what the Mutants had done to him, all that fueled him, all which made him go on was his anger; he would not give up on it, it would be unfair to them. Combat training on the other hand… that was something he was willing to try.

"Fine, Captain Bengali, you win," the tall Thunderian conceded. "I'll come to combat practice starting tomorrow."

0-0

"Is this real?" Pummyra asked, looking at the data-pad in her hand and reading the information on the small screen for the third time.

"The Mutant I took it from was the foreman at the warehouse we raided this morning," Bengali replied. "They weren't expecting us, there's no reason to believe he was given this so that I would find it."

"Great Jaga… we finally angered them enough…," the puma whispered as she sat on her bed, a very concerned expression creeping up her face. She had been in her room, going through a list of the medicinal herbs she needed to collect when Bengali entered in a hurry, claiming he had something very important to show her.

The message in the data pad she kept reading over and over was short and concise, and what it said was this:

_To Vultureman:_

_The new Warbot you asked for is completed. I will deliver it two days from now in Crystal Canyon as we agreed. I think you'll be surprised with the Flamethrower we installed; I guarantee that all the rebels in that forest you mentioned will burn to cinders. Oh, and Vultureman? Make sure Slithe or one of the others is there with my pay or I'll simply take my Warbot back to Plundarr. (2)_

_Ratar-O._

Bengali noticed Pummyra's concern and simply sat at her side placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "We'll find a way to get rid of that thing, how terrible can that Warbot be?"

Pummyra stifled a nervous laugh. "Far more terrible that what you can imagine, Bengali, I saw a picture of one of those things in the files of the Lair's computer back in Third Earth. It is a massive machine armed with powerful weapons; it took Cat's Lair down with ease back then and the only thing that could destroy it was the Sword of Omens... I don't know how we'll survive this." (3)

"Like I said, we'll find a way to stop it," Bengali assured his best friend and gave her a friendly squeeze on her shoulder. "But we'll all need to keep a level head on our shoulders to make a good plan, ok?"

"I guess you're right," Pummyra answered as she took in a deep breath to calm herself down. "Call everyone then, we must decide how to deal with this."

0-0

Crystal Canyon was located in a large, flat and arid zone with no vegetation, as everything in the area was completely crystallized; the gorge itself was probably the largest and deepest precipice in New Thundera, going down and down until it ended abruptly in a cold river that ran through hard as steel crystal formations.

Pummyra and Bengali, accompanied by twenty other rebels have been hiding in a cave close to the edge of the ravine for several hours; they explored the canyon the day before, and found a landing platform had been built at the side of the chasm. The platform was supported by a series of metal posts and was, of course, heavily guarded; the rebel spies had managed to count at least twenty Reptilians and a similar number of Monkey Men. In their favor, though, was the fact that there were no guards under the platform.

The white tiger, spying with a pair of binoculars as he hid behind a rock at the entrance of the cave, cursed as he saw the largest truck he'd ever seen parked on the landing platform. He'd been watching as the vehicle approached and assumed would be used to transport the Warbot. Also, though he had feared the possibility, he hadn't thought both Vultureman and Slithe would come here.

"What can you see?" Pummyra asked as she crept to his side. "Tell me some good news."

"It can be both good and bad, depending on how you look at it," Bengali equivocated. "Slithe and Vultureman are here, so we might be able to take them down, that's the good news; the bad news is that, well, we can hate to admit it all we want, but you do know Slithe is actually competent when it comes to leading other Reptilians, and Vultureman is also pretty smart. Then there's Ratar-O himself when he arrives and also his ship the Ratstar, he's my main concern, actually."

"We might not have to fight the Ratstar or the Warbot," the puma reminded him. "You and that big Forge-master guy did a good job with that explosive you created, and our engineer made some very powerful bombs with it."

"Yes, this plan has a good chance to succeed," Bengali agreed as he put his binoculars back in the bag attached to his belt. Once they had learned about the landing platform in Crystal Canyon they had decided that their best chance was to simply set explosives on it and to detonate them as soon as the Warbot was out of Ratar-O's ship so they could send the thing down the cliff.

"I've finished tracing the best route to approach the platform," Pummyra informed him. "We won't be seen if we follow it; once there, you'll create a diversion to cover my group while we set the bombs and then we can all escape in the confusion. It will be alright and we'll get rid of that Warbot before they can even use it."

"With some luck we will," Bengali concluded. Then he looked at his data-pad, which one of the engineers had modified slightly to pick up Mutant signals, and frowned at the information it was showing. "It seems the… Ratstar 2, did Ratar-O get a new ship? Anyway, it will be here in less than an hour."

"In that case, I think it's time to go." Pummyra said while steeling herself for the dangerous mission they had ahead of them.

A short time later…

Pummyra, with five men behind her, dashed silently under the landing platform, their objective the several thick pillars of steel and concrete that supported it. Once beneath it she split her group into twos and gave the order to wait for Bengali's signal and then set the explosive charges as fast as possible; and while they waited, all Pummyra could hope for was that neither Bengali nor the fifteen rebels with him would get hurt creating the distraction they needed or during the detonation of the explosives.

Above Pummyra and her group, Bengali and other fifteen rebels hid behind and under a series of poorly organized large metal crates, waiting for the precise moment to create the diversion.

"The ship's here," O-Celot, who was kneeling besides Bengali, muttered with an anxious whisper. "Shall we attack now?"

"No. Wait until it's on the ground and they're unloading the Warbot; that'll be the perfect time to make a move," Bengali instructed.

They didn't have to wait long; the Ratstar 2 was apparently not much bigger than its predecessor, but it was considerably faster and in less than two minutes it touched down. Once the rat shaped ship was safely docked, the large doors behind it opened, revealing to the rebels, and the Mutants already congregated there, its deadly cargo.

Ratar-O was standing at the side of a magnificent but incredibly dangerous piece of engineering; a Mutant Warbot that stood on four thick, solid legs, with the insect-like head of the robot at least a dozen meters above the ground. Its broad torso was armed with four energy cannons; the left arm of the machine was armed with a giant axe, while the other featured the large barrel of something that reminded Bengali of a massive plasma blaster.

Slithe and Vultureman walked up to greet Ratar-O and while the rebels could not hear what the Mutants were talking about, they did notice the remote control the Mutant rodent held in his hands, and how he didn't relinquish it until Slithe ordered three Reptilians to deposit six boxes full of precious stones inside the Ratstar 2. Once he had the remote in his hands, Vultureman wasted no time in activating the Warbot, and Slithe laughed in anticipation as the tall robot came to life and marched out of the spaceship and onto the landing platform. From there the avian mutant guided the Warbot into the large bed of the enormous truck Bengali had seen earlier.

"We must attack now!" O-Celot hissed, his fangs bared. "The truck is close to these crates and they've already got that robot on it, what are we waiting for?"

"The Warbot is still active, let's wait until they've turned it off," Bengali ordered.

"By then it will be too late!" The tall Thunderian argued as his face twisted with rage. "Wait here if you want, I'm not going to let them take that thing off this platform!"

"O-Celot, wait!"

But the large Thunderian did not listen to Bengali's orders and jumped out of his hiding place, rushing at the group of Mutants that were guarding the gigantic truck. The Forge-master moved fast enough to catch four Reptilians by surprise, and was able to rip two heads off their shoulders with quick and powerful lateral swings of his sledgehammer; he managed to hit the third one in the left knee, breaking it with a sickening crack, the fourth Reptilian, though, managed to run to the other side of the vehicle, alerting the other Mutants of the attack.

"Damn him to hell!" Bengali cursed as he watched what O-Celot had done. Realizing their cover was blown the white tiger sent Pummyra the signal and quickly turned to the other rebels behind him. "We've got no choice now; let's stop that idiot from getting himself killed!"

And while Bengali and his men prepared to back up the rage-crazed Forge-master, Pummyra and her group started placing the explosives as quickly as they could.

O-Celot was surrounded by twenty Monkey Men, who had circled him as soon as he reached the other side of the mutant truck. The Monkey men were engaging him in pairs and were using their traditional maces to try to beat the Forge-master to a pulp, but they were not being very successful, since the tall Thunderian had no trouble at all keeping them at bay with his hammer, and had already managed to badly hurt three of them. The Reptilians on the other hand, had gathered around Slithe, Vultureman and Ratar-O in order to offer them protection should the insane Thunderian try to attack them.

"Use the Warbot to kill that pest before he s-s-sends more of us to the clinics!" Slithe ordered Vultureman. The reptilian leader was already bored by this spectacle, and was not willing to let more of his men get hurt in a useless brawl against a demented Thunderian.

"Kaaw! If I use the Warbot's weapons I might kill our men as well, Slithe!" Vultureman argued. "Let the Monkey Men take care of him, they greatly outnumber him, after all!"

"You might want to look again!" Bengali shouted as he and his men came from behind the large truck. Not wanting to waste the element of surprise, the white tiger and the other rebels launched themselves at the Monkey Men, starting a very even fight. Bengali only wanted to buy Pummyra time and was only waiting for her to signal him back before he ordered a retreat; he was already thinking this might work well after all, since the Monkey Men were not fighting as an organized unit and the Reptilians were, up to that point, guarding the three mutant leaders. If all went well for the next couple of minutes or so, they would be able to get the hell out of the platform with no loses at all.

O-Celot, however, was not thinking along the same lines as Bengali was; for the Forge-master, the back-up was just what he needed to do what he had wanted to do ever since the day he had joined the rebellion. Growling in rage, the tall Thunderian swung his sledgehammer and crushed a Monkey Man that tried to stop him before jumping out of the circle of simian mutants, landing right in front of the Reptilians.

Bengali saw this, but he was fighting two Monkey-Men, and couldn't, again, stop the Forge-master from acting like a damn fool in the battlefield. Determined to prevent O-Celot from killing himself, the white tiger fought harder, trying to get past his two adversaries.

"Slithe, you damned bastard, come and fight me if you dare!" O-Celot yelled, his eyes bloodshot in rage and his muscles tense, anticipating the wave of Reptilians that would launch themselves at him. The Forge-master, however, did not care about that; in fact, he was craving it, for his plan was to die that day, in battle against the Mutants that had caused him so much pain. But he would NOT die before sending Slithe to burn in Hell!

"Vultureman, use the Warbot already!" Slithe demanded. "The Monkey Men are losing the fight!"

"Hold on," Ratar-O ordered. "That big Thunderian who wants to kill you, Slithe... I want to fight him."

"Why?" Vultureman asked. "You won't win anything by fighting that crazy freak, Kaaw!"

"It's been a long time since I had a good challenge on the battlefield," Ratar-O said with a sinister smirk as he stepped forward and walked between the Reptilians in front of him. "And longer still since I've killed a Thunderian."

"I want Slithe, not a vermin like you!" O-Celot stated once Ratar-O was in front of him. "If I must kill you to reach him, though, then so be it!"

"Oh, this is going to be so much fun!" the mutant commander laughed. "You won't be saying the same when your guts are on the floor!"

The Forge-master did not answer and instead charged his new adversary, raising his hammer and bringing it down as fast and hard as he could. The attack proved destructive enough, as it cracked the concrete ground of the landing platform, but the hammer didn't strike its intended target; Ratar-O had sidestepped the attack, and unsheathed his twin sais as he did so.

"Let's see if you like the taste of the Rat's Eye blades!" Ratar-O shouted as he slashed at O-Celot.

The large Thunderian, even when he managed to block his opponent's strikes, soon found himself overwhelmed and unable to fend off the assault of the more experienced and battle hardened mutant commander. He was forced away from the Ratstar, where Slithe and Vultureman stood and laughed at his misfortune.

"What a waste of time!" Ratar-O yelled. "I expected better from someone fueled by so much anger ... die then, you useless Thunderian!"

The mutant commander didn't give O-Celot time to react, and with a quick spin of his hands, drove his twin sais into the center of the tall Thunderian's chest, pulling them in opposite directions before withdrawing them. O-Celot dropped his hammer and looked down at his bleeding chest; he placed his hands over the wounds and fell on his knees ready to welcome the cold embrace of death, his only regret being unable to get his revenge by murdering Slithe before dying.

"I didn't even have to blast him with the Rat's eyes to defeat him!" Ratar-O lamented as he sheathed his sais and watched the tall Thunderian fall. "I almost wish Lion-O was here, that cursed brat could at least properly defend himself!"

"The Monkey Men are running away, Vultureman," Slithe observed. "Will you use the Warbot now?"

"I guess it's safe to do it now," the mutant scientist agreed as he pressed a series of buttons on his remote. "Let's see if those Thunderian rebels like being turned to stone!"

The rebels had managed by then to defeat the Monkey Men, and were able to watch how the mutant rat defeated their strongest member with incredible ease. Bengali was trying to decide what he should do, but Vultureman using the Warbot made the choice for him; without warning, the giant robot shot a gray liquid from a gun on its chest and as soon as the substance touched five of his men, they quickly turned to statues!

"I didn't know it could do that!" Bengali growled as fear twisted his stomach. "Retreat everyone; get the hell out of here!"

"But... Captain!" a rebel called. "What about you?"

"I've got to stop that thing and save that idiot if there's a chance!" Bengali answered. "Now go!"

The rebel didn't have to be told twice, for the Warbot started turning, getting ready to climb off the truck and onto the landing platform so it could chase the rebels more effectively. Bengali noticed this as well, and also noticed that the Monkey Man who had been driving the large truck was gone. A plan quickly forming in his mind, the white tiger rushed to the truck's cabin and hastily jumped behind the wheel.

"Please Jaga, let this work!" Screaming that plea, Bengali changed the gears into reverse and hit the gas; he felt the Warbot shift its weight on the back of the truck and was not surprised when a splash of a gray substance hit the rear window just behind his head. Steeling his resolve, the Thunderian blacksmith increased the speed and smiled when he saw the truck was about to hit the rail at the edge of the platform. At the ast possible moment, Bengali jumped out of the vehicle, rolling as he hit the ground.

The truck's large cargo box hit the rail with great force, smashing it and going right through, sending the vehicle, along with the Warbot, down into the deep gorge. Bengali allowed himself a second to enjoy his triumph, listening as the Warbot plummeted to its destruction, crashing against the hard crystal walls with an ear-piercing boom.

"No! Not my beautiful Warbot, Kaaw!" cried Vultureman, who immediately shouted to the Reptilians around him, "Go and kill that miserable cat!"

Bengali rose quickly, glancing about the area, and was relieved when he saw his men had vanished from the platform. He felt for the five that had been turned to stone, but there was nothing he could do to help them. All he could do now was try to save O-Celot, who was on all fours in the middle of a pool of his own blood. His choice made, the Blacksmith rushed towards the fallen Forge-master, and was not surprised to see Ratar-O was already boarding his ship; it was the most logical action, the mutant rodent had already gotten his pay for the Warbot, and now that it had been destroyed there was nothing else for him to do here. This was perfect for Bengali, who had never had any intention of fighting the Mutant commander.

Below the platform Pummyra, who was about to signal Bengali that the bombs would explode in forty five seconds, was surprised to see the truck and giant robot tumble into the precipice. Unable to believe her own eyes, the puma rushed to the edge of the cliff in time to see the Warbot hit the bottom of the ravine and blew up, sending a wave of heat in her direction.

"What was that?" A man from the Panther clan asked as he approached Pummyra.

"The Warbot. Bengali and his group threw it down the cliff," the puma answered.

"Then, all the explosive charges we set...?"

"We still blow them up!" the rebel healer announced. "We take this platform out and the Mutants will have to build another one before getting something like that Warbot again. Now get everybody out of here!"

Stating this, Pummyra pressed a button in her transmitter, arming all the explosives and sending Bengali the signal to evacuate. Hoping all the rebels in her friend's group would be able to escape, Pummyra began running away from the platform as fast as she could.

Above, Bengali found himself quickly surrounded by the reminding Lizard Men, who were only waiting the order to either kill him or capture him, something Slithe and Vultureman had begun arguing about. The white tiger risked looking up, and was relieved to see the Ratstar 2 was already a small dot in the sky. It was then when his transmitter beeped loudly alerting him to the soon to explode charges beneath him.

"Slithe, you and your men better leave this place if you want to live," Bengali warned, glancing at the screen of his transmitter and counting little more than forty seconds before the platform blew up.

"You are in no position to tell me what to do, Thundercat!" Slithe shot back, barely holding back a laugh. He then looked at his men. "Stop wasting time and capture him!"

"The pillars under the platform will blow up in less than thirty seconds, Slithe!" the white tiger informed him. "My friends planted explosives on them while we kept you busy."

The Lizardian did not answer, and instead stared intently at the Thunderian his men were about to capture. Slithe, despite what Mumm-Ra always said, was not stupid, and quickly realized that blowing the platform up was the best way the rebels had to destroy the Warbot; besides, being a skilled liar himself, he could tell Bengali was not hiding the truth.

"Are you going to listen to him, Slithe?" Vultureman snapped, noticing the hesitation in his partner's face. "I can't believe you are so foolish, Kaaw!"

"Thundercats don't lie, you overgrown buzzard!" the Lizard Man hissed threateningly. "Can't you see he's not lying? We have to get out of here!"

"But he…" Vultureman stopped, he had finally noticed Bengali's expression and, just as Slithe had an instant before, saw the truth in the Thuderian's eyes. Taking a cautious step back, the avian mutant nodded at Slithe. "I assume we can always make him pay for this later."

"Yes, we can, and we will!" the mutant leader promised. Stating this, Slithe raised his fist and ordered his men to retreat. Vultureman was already on his way to his bird shaped Flying Machine, and Slithe quickly followed. Imitating their leaders, the rest of the Lizard Men quickly scattered, abandoning the platform faster than their bulky frames should have allowed.

Bengali glanced at his transmitter and cursed under his breath when he noticed he had less than ten seconds to escape. The white tiger considered leaving O-Celot behind but he dismissed the idea immediately, he was a Thundercat, and even if he had lost some men already, he had to at least try to save the Forge-master. His choice made, Bengali rushed to the large Thunderian's side.

"C'mon, big guy, use some of that brute strength of yours and get up!" Bengali urged as he tried to force his partner to rise, but found that task impossible. O-Celot had collapsed in a pool of his own blood and, while still conscious, was not making any effort to move.

"Go… away Bengali…let me die here, I've e-earned it!" the Forge-master weakly demanded as consciousness abandoned him.

Bengali did not answer; a deafening blast echoed through the canyon and the platform shook violently, the first blast quickly followed by another, and then another. Just as the rebellion's engineers had planned, the first explosion destroyed the pillars closer to the cliff, making sure that when the next charges blew up, the platform would slide into the precipice.

And Bengali, struggling with his now unconscious companion, was trapped there. Concrete was cracking around him, the warehouse built on top of the platform and the control room had already collapsed, and the tiger gasped as he saw how the heavy rubble from both constructions vanished into the dark opening in front of him. The end of the platform cracked then, tumbling into the chasm with a loud crash; this caused the rest of the structure to crack in two and to sink even faster into the abyss.

Bengali, hope leaving him, darted his eyes left and right, madly searching for something that could help him survive. Then he saw it. An abandoned Skycutter was sliding into the precipice a few meters ahead of him, and would be gone in a matter of seconds. Not wanting to waste this chance, the Thundercat jumped at the vehicle, and managed to sit and start it just as the section of the platform it was in collapsed into the canyon.

The vehicle was nose-diving amidst the rubble while the engine gathered enough power to allow it to fly and for an instant, Bengali felt certain of his death. But luckily, the turbines roared and the Skycutter changed directions just as a large rock passed behind it. Gritting his teeth as he forced the flying machine up, Bengali saw the inert form of O-Celot falling into the chasm; the section of the platform he had been on finally reaching the edge of the cliff.

Praying to Jaga for success on what he was about to do, Bengali maneuvered the Skycutter between the falling rocks and pieces of metal and by some unspoken miracle, managed to be on the right place at the precise moment, the Forge-master falling on the back of the Skycutter's seat. Bengali quickly darted a hand back, making sure O-Celot would not fall from the vehicle while they left the destruction falling behind them.

0-0

"So, how is he?"

Pummyra looked up from the chair she was sitting on and found Bengali standing there. The blacksmith was not looking at her, though, but at the man sleeping on the bed at her side.

"He's pretty strong, he'll survive," Pummyra answered. "He did loose a lot of blood, though, and the wounds on his chest are deep; he won't be able to move much for a while."

"Did he say something?" Bengali asked. "Anything about why he lost his mind and acted like a suicidal maniac back there?"

"He's not a suicidal maniac," Pummyra scolded gently. "He's just hurt."

"Yeah, I can see that," the tiger pointed out, looking at O-Celot's chest.

"Not just hurt physically," the healer clarified, standing up as she placed a hand over her heart. "He's also hurt here. His heart is broken, that's why he 'lost his mind' during the mission, Bengali."

"I see... but we can't help him if he doesn't talk about his problems, can we?"

"You're right, he needs to talk to someone; he'll heal faster if he does. Maybe you could help with that."

Bengali sighed. "He won't talk to me about anything personal; trust me, I've tried too many times already.

"I'll give it a try," Pummyra promised. "I'm a doctor; it is my responsibility to help him as much as I can."

The white tiger smirked. "Good luck with that, then. You're gonna need it."

Two days later...

O-Celot cursed his body again as he felt his strength leave him the moment he tried to get out of the bed, which he'd been in for far too long in his opinion. It angered him to feel so weak, it angered him to know that Slithe was still out there somewhere and it angered him to be alive. The moment had been perfect, a good death had been within his grasp; a death in the battlefield and at the hands of a powerful enemy, so fine a death that it had almost been enough to make him forget Slithe would still live. All stolen from him by that meddlesome tiger!

What angered him the most, however, was her. Coming everyday to check on him, bringing him food in the evenings and at nights, trying to start a conversation with him over stupid subjects like the weather, the birds or the idiotic things she had seen in that Third Earth world she had lived on for years. O-Celot had ignored each and every one of her attempts at making small talk with him, and had no intention of talking with her.

"How are you feeling today?" a female voice called.

"Miserable," O-Celot answered, not looking at the woman who had just entered the recovery room.

"... Are you at least a little hungry?" she tried again. "I brought you food."

"You bring me food every afternoon and every night, General," the tall Thunderian said. "Don't you have other things to do?"

"Yes, many," Pummyra answered. "But even if I'm one of the leaders of the rebellion... I'm still a doctor and making time to help you heal is my job."

"What about the plans to free other Thunderians you mentioned, aren't they more important?"

"I already talked that over with Bengali. Do you think I spend every minute of my day thinking about you?" she asked him while placing the tray on the night table besides his bed. "I work with the other rebels too, O-Celot, and I still make time to come to see you. We have no nurses, see? And the other women in our group are too afraid to come near you."

"They fear me?"

"How could they not?" she shot back. "You are rude and impolite to everybody... you act like a reptilian, you know?"

"Inconsiderate woman! I don't act like a rotten Lizard man, I'm NOT like them!" O-Celot shouted angrily and quickly sat on his bed, regretting it immediately as a sharp pain exploded in his chest. He glanced down and saw his bandages were already stained red.

"You've pulled the wound open," Pummyra observed, surprisingly calm as she reached for a medical kit under the Forge-master's bed. "Lie down and let me look at it."

The sulking Thunderian did as he was told, and the healer worked expertly on him, using a sedative gel to keep him from feeling pain while she closed his wound again.

"And what you just did..." she told him as she finished changing the bandages over O-Celot's chest, "...is why people fear you and why I said you act like a mutant sometimes. Can't you at least be somewhat polite when I'm here? I'm trying to help you get better; you don't have to be so... so difficult about it!"

O-Celot was about to answer, but the woman stood up and walked to the door before he could do so.

"Your wounds are going to hurt a little, but do try to eat something," she advised, not looking at him. "And do try to think about who is the inconsiderate one here."

Pummyra didn't bring O-Celot dinner that night, and she didn't visit him again until two days had passed.

Three days later...

They had fallen into a routine which had guaranteed no more harsh comments would be made between them. She would come in and place the food in the night table, would check his wounds and finally would tell him about the plans the rebellion was making. It kept things civil and normal, even if it also meant no progress in helping O-Celot let go of his anger was being made.

The puma had given up on trying to start friendlier conversation with the Forge-master, not because she feared his insults, Jaga knew she'd been called worse when she was a slave in the mines, but because he had not seemed sorry at all for what he had said to her, and petty as it was, she couldn't really force herself to forgive him for that.

"I want to apologize," he said suddenly, startling Pummyra out of her thoughts.

"Excuse me?"

"For the other day," O-Celot continued. "I… I'm sorry, General. I shouldn't have said those things. It's just that… you keep coming here even after what I said to you and you... you keep treating my wounds, and you keep me company even if you don't have to. It takes a lot of strength to do that, and I respect you for it, Pummyra. You didn't deserve what I said. I'm sorry for insulting you, I really am."

She stared at him for a long while before answering, trying to decide if he was being honest or not; finally, not seeing deceit in his eyes, nor desire to just apologize because it would be more convenient for him, she reasoned that he had truly apologized to her, that he had meant it.

"Thank you, O-Celot, that means a lot," she told him and smiled at him, thinking that perhaps he was ready to start healing, truly healing. "And you're forgiven, by the way."

The Forge master felt better the moment she smiled at him; she hadn't done that since the argument, and her silence and cold stares had bit into him like an auger. It made him feel like garbage, especially because she truly hadn't deserved what he'd said. That was why he had apologized; to see her smile now, it literally lifted a shadow from the room to him.

"It means a lot to me, too," he didn't notice it then; but he was smiling back.

0-0

It was sunny, warm and the training grounds of the rebel base were empty except for a large man and a woman who walked by his side. He was making his way back to the rebel base after working for a couple of hours in the furnace; she had come to check on his wounds, and had ended up asking him questions about what he and Bengali had been doing for the last few months inside the workshop.

"Just some armor, arrow tips, swords, lances… things that we'll need."

"What about Bengali's special project?" she probed. "The one he won't tell me about?"

"I'm sorry, I can't talk about it. He'll tell you eventually, I'm sure of it."

The two continued walking in silence for a while, until she sat on a log near the base's entrance. He stopped and looked down at her, wondering why she had suddenly decided to stop there.

"It's funny, you know?" she questioned while stretching her arms and legs. "A couple of months ago it would have been impossible for you and me to have a conversation like this."

O-Celot had to agree with that; he didn't know how to answer her comment, so he decided to simply remain silent and let her talk.

"You were so angry back then... almost like a completely different person."

The Forge-master smiled softly at this, but he still chose to remain silent.

"I'm glad you're not acting like that anymore; you're better company like this," Pummyra went on. Feeling that this would be a good chance to try to get O-Celot to talk about what was hurting him emotionally she decided to risk speaking with him about it again. This time, however, she would use a different, more subtle approach.

"The forest over there…" the puma started as she pointed at the sea of green on the other side of the training grounds, "reminds me of my parents. They were both healers, and we used to collect healing herbs together in a forest similar to that one."

He nodded at her comment, but once again said nothing in return.

"What about your parents?" Pummyra asked. "Are they alive?"

"They died during the cataclysm that destroyed Old Thundera."

"Mine, too," she sighed. "They were my only family… I was lucky to have Bengali and Lynx-O with me back then. What about you, O-Celot, don't you have any other family?"

Out of the corner of her eye, the healer noticed how he tensed at the question and for a moment she feared he would walk away from her in a fit of anger but then he suddenly relaxed and, after a moment of hesitation, sat down on the log, not too far away from her.

"I had two younger brothers; they were fishermen and worked for the mutant traders," the big Thunderian made a short pause and took a deep breath; he didn't want to talk about this but at the same time he felt Pummyra would understand him and deep down, he knew he had to let the ache of his memories out so they could be memories, sad ones of course, but not the source of pain and fury they were now.

"Something happened to them?"

"Slithe had them killed," the Forge-master paused to recollect his thoughts. "You know how the mutant traders take over ninety percent of what the fishermen catch, don't you? Well, that day Slithe was visiting and he demanded more than usual... my brothers refused to pay and that cursed Lizardman gave the order to…!"

Pummyra nodded as she looked at him, at his pain filled frown, at his bared fangs and at his trembling hands. He truly was hurting then. "I'm sorry for your loss," she honestly said, placing a gentle hand over his forearm. "I can only imagine how much you hurt... it's no wonder that you acted like... that."

"I was on my way to the piers that day. I listened to Slithe's orders and saw how the Reptilians killed them! I-I couldn't do anything! I couldn't avenge them when I had Slithe in front of me!" the Forge-master muttered anxiously, not risking raising his voice because he knew that if he did so he would start screaming like he had done so many times in the past. "What a good older brother I turned out to be… unable to get revenge, unable to die in battle…"

"I don't think your brothers would like to hear that," Pummyra assured as she gave him a friendly squeeze on the shoulder. "Do you think they're happy seeing how you slowly kill yourself? Live for them, O-Celot, live for them and honor their memory by protecting others from suffering the same fate as them. It is what they deserve."

"General…"

"Just think about it," she advised as she stood up. Offering him a final smile, Pummyra went into the rebel base, leaving the Forge-master deep in thought behind her.

0-0

Bengali entered the rebel's medical room while carrying something he kept wrapped in a black cloth. He smiled when he found Pummyra alone, since what he wanted to discuss with her would go better if they could do it in private.

"What is that?" she asked while pointing at the bundle he carried as soon as he was sitting in front of her, on the other side of the large table she was using to work with some medicinal herbs.

"This is the beginning of something that could be very good for us in the long run."

She smiled. "I trust it is if you say so, but I would really like to see it."

As an answer, Bengali unwrapped the object, revealing what he carried under the cloth. It was a replica of the Sword of Omens in its dormant state; some details were different, like the decorations in the handle and hilt, and of course there was an empty space where the Eye of Thundera should have been attached but other than that the resemblance was uncanny.

"What is this?" she asked, her eyes never leaving the short dagger.

"Isn't it obvious? I'm working on a replica of the Sword of Omens; this is just the first try! I've been thinking of doing this for a long time, I even told Panthro about it when we were in the mines together!"

"I thought you only told him about our plan to gather people and fight Mumm-Ra back," the puma remembered. "Anyway, why are you doing this now?"

"Because we need something like this, Pummyra," Bengali said with enthusiasm. "Sooner or later we're going to face Mumm-Ra, and the only way we can have a fighting chance against him is if we have a weapon that can stand up to the Sword of Plundarr. And not just that, we need a symbol; if we have the Sword of Omens or something at least similar, more people will join us, even the farmers that have refused to do so."

"I guess you have a point there," the healer conceded as she reached for the small sword and looked it over. "How are you going to replicate the Eye? Is that even possible?"

"It is, but I can't do that. My father told me once that the secret of the creation of the Eye of Thundera was written in the Book of Omens; and that only the Lord of the Thundercats has the right to read it," Bengali explained. "But I do know about a method to create something similar."

"Really?"

"Yes, remember how Jagara had all these old manuscripts she kept in the Gyroscope room?" (4)

"Yes, the ones we had to move out of there after Lion-O Used the Eye to stabilize New Thundera's core so that we wouldn't need the Gyroscope anymore. What about them?" (5)

"Well, Jagara gave me this dusty scroll she had before she died. She claimed it had the secrets of the ancient Forge-masters, and that I should read it."

Pummyra frowned, slightly confused. "Aren't you a blacksmith, isn't that the same?"

" No. Thunderian Forge-masters specialize _only_ in crafting weapons and armor. Blacksmiths can do that as well but we're also able to do other things like parts for machinery, pieces of equipment, special alloys for vehicles and many other things," Bengali explained. "Because of that, there are some things Forge-masters know that Blacksmiths do not, and vice-versa."

"Then how come you could fix the Sword of Omens?" the healer asked.

"Every Thunderian Blacksmith and Forge-master knows how to do that, it is a requirement that we must meet before we are even acknowledged as one."

"I see. So, what did you learn in that scroll?"

"How to give a weapon power and make it sentient," the tiger said with a confident smile. "I haven't perfected the method yet, but I think I'm getting close."

"Is O-Celot helping you with this?" she asked.

"Not really. He knows what I'm doing, but that's it," the Blacksmith then scratched his head thoughtfully. "But I do believe he knows some things that I don't."

"Why don't you ask him?"

"I did. He wouldn't tell me much, though."

"Do you want me to ask him for you?"

"No, don't bother. He'll tell me if he feels like it," Bengali answered. "Besides, I actually want to do this on my own; it's silly, I know, but I really want to do it by myself."

"It isn't silly," Pummyra assured him and handed the sword to him. "And I know you will create a great sword."

"Thank you," Bengali said, wrapping the sword in the black cloth again. "Pummyra, I will need to leave for a while in order to complete this."

The healer stood up, a worried expression crawling on her face. "You're going to leave us? But you can't, you're the leader on the field, our men listen to you! Why can't you work on the sword here, why?"

"Because the type of energy I'm going to channel into the new Eye is too great. If I do it here it wouldn't be safe," he explained. "I need to go somewhere else for that."

"There is a cabin on the other side of the forest, a couple of days away from here," the white tiger said. "It's near to what's left of a small town, and it has a basement I can place a furnace in and it is close to a special place where I can get the energy I need."

Pummyra crossed her arms and stared at Bengali, thinking hard about the location he'd just mentioned. "I think I've seen that house, but the only place near it is Cat-tail's village cemetery! Why would you want to work next to a place like that?"

"Like I said, I can get the energy I need from it."

"You're not making any sense!"

"On the contrary, I am," the blacksmith argued. "Jagara's scroll mentioned many methods to power up a weapon, and the least dangerous is to have it siphon energy from the souls of the death."

"Bengali, you are not a wizard; it is impossible for you to do something like that!"

"I don't need to be a wizard. All I need is a specific type of alloy that includes this," he said while taking out a red crystal from his pocket. "It wasn't easy to get, but a blood stone like this, mixed with the right amounts of iron and some other minerals should draw power from the death without the need of magic."

"And if it doesn't work?"

"It will work; I know what I'm doing, everything will be alright," Bengali promised. "I just need to go for a while; it won't be for long, a couple of months, maybe less."

"Fine… but I will come to see you from time to time," Pummyra said with a smirk. "I know you don't like to be alone for too long."

The white tiger returned her smile. "Thank you."

0-0

It would be night soon, and the cool air carried with it a faint smell that Pummyra didn't like, the smell of burning wood and hay. She stopped at the edge of an obviously abandoned road and crouched behind a tree, and the six men behind her quickly did the same. The puma sniffed at the air again and strained her sensitive ears as much as she could, but try as she might she could not listen to anything suspicious. But the smell… it was making her skin crawl for some reason.

"I hope this feeling I have is just my imagination," she muttered to herself and after a short while, she stood up again and started walking on the side of the road, conveniently close to the protective shadows of the tall trees on her left; her men, of course, followed her again.

"Stay close to the trees!" she called back after a quick glance behind her revealed her that a young rebel of the Jaguar clan had strayed to the middle of the road. "There might be mutants patrolling on Skycutters around here."

A few minutes later, the tree line that provided the rebel group protection ended abruptly where the road widened into a large clearing. To the right an old cemetery could be seen and to the left the remains of a small village completed the desolate landscape; in the middle of this sad scenery, between the graveyard and the town, stood the ruins of what once had been a small cabin.

The house had burned almost to the ground, and black smoke still rose from its remains.

"No…" the healer whispered as fear took a hold of her heart. "Not Bengali!"

"General, wait!" A rebel called, but to no avail, Pummyra ran towards what was left of the old hut and did not listen to the warnings of her men.

"Let's go after her, there could be mutants close by!" O-Celot said while sprinting for the healer. The Forge-master was truly hoping that the reason why the hut had burned was something as simple as a furnace accident and that Bengali was somewhere else.

The first thing Pummyra saw once she reached the house was that it had indeed completely burned down, and only the walls, made of stone bricks, still stood, if only partially. The roof and the floor had collapsed, and on the right end, below what she assumed was a chimney she saw a huge gap in the ground. Down there, she could see what was left of Bengali's workshop.

"This was not caused by an accident."

Pummyra looked behind her to find O-Celot and the other rebels had followed her and stood at the house's entrance. The Forge master was looking at the pit that used to be the hut's basement and seemed to be deep in thought.

"What did you say?" the healer asked. "How do you know that?"

"There aren't marks of fire on the basement walls, and the floor of the cabin was not completely destroyed by it. If the fire had started in the furnace, the house would have burned differently, and it would have caved in sooner than what it apparently did," another rebel, a former chemist for what Pummyra remembered, explained.

Focused as they were on examining the ruins, all but one of the rebels failed to notice the sound of a twig snapping behind them. "Did you hear that?" said rebel asked, lowering his voice.

"Hear what?" O-Celot demanded.

"Wait here; I'll go take a look," stating this, the rebel, a member of the Cheetah clan, vanished in a blur of gray and orange, just to appear a few seconds later a few steps away, holding a mutant of the Jackal kin by the neck and left arm.

"As I thought, we had company!" the male Cheetah announced. "What shall we do with him?"

"Tie him up. I have some questions he might be able to answer," Pummyra ordered, her voice growing cold and furious.

It didn't take much intimidation on the part of the rebel group, just a couple of swings too close to the head from certain Thunderian's massive hammer, for the jackal to answer all the questions they had for him. The information they gathered, however, did nothing to ease Pummyra's worries.

"Where did they take him?" the healer asked. "You said Bengali had been encased in crystal and carried somewhere this morning, tell us where!"

"T-the Thundranium mines!" answered the jackal. "Monkian and Jackalman supervised that, they were the ones who set the house on fire, I'm here only in case…!"

"In case more rebels showed up," Pummyra finished for him. "Who captured Bengali? Tell me!"

"I don't know! I-I heard it was one of the young ones! That's all I know!"

The puma frowned at this; young ones? What was this mutant talking about?

"What young ones?" she demanded. "Tell me who…"

Pummyra could not finish her question, as the sound of an engine cut her words short.

"Skycutters!" the young Cheetah announced as he looked at the sky. "I count twelve of them!"

"They'll be here pretty soon and there's no way we can fight that many," another rebel reminded the group. "We have to leave!"

For an instant, Pummyra considered staying and fight but the rebel had been right, they didn't have the fire power to survive against a dozen Skycutters.

The mocking laughter of the Jackal was heard then. "Stupid cats! Did you think I wouldn't use my silent alarm to call for help? You're going to pay for this humiliation!"

The healer gritted her teeth, finding the Jackal's laughter intolerable in the face of her shock and grief. "Shut up!" she ordered, but the canine mutant kept cackling.

"I told you to shut up!" Pummyra snapped and smashed her fist on the mutant's jaw with all her strength, dropping the mutant on his back, knocking him completely unconscious. The medic stared at her fist then, already regretting hitting a defenseless man, even if said man was an enemy.

"General Pummyra?" O-Celot called, ignoring the unconscious mutant that had fallen to his feet. "What do you want us to do?"

"Retreat!" she ordered, her thoughts refocusing on reality. "Let's go, back to the forest everyone, fast!"

0-0

Pummyra sat in her bedroom, deep in thought and truly concerned about what she had seen that morning. Her spies had told her about something strange being constructed close to Mumm-Ra's pyramid, and she of course had gone to investigate the area, hoping that Bengali was there.

She had not seen Bengali, but she did see something else that made her skin crawl. That strange structure, an arch apparently, that Mumm-Ra was building and those… those _disgusting_ monsters he had momentarily summoned! The idea of facing one of those horrid things in combat made Pummyra sick with dread. She was under the impression that the arch would let him summon the monsters for long periods of time, so she would have to find a way to destroy it. And she had to do it soon.

Finding and saving Bengali was, however, her top priority so that arch in construction would have to wait; it had been three weeks since Bengali had been captured, and the healer was starting to lose hope for him being found alive. So far, her spies had not seen anything that could lead to the missing Blacksmith; not in the cities, not in the farms, not in the piers... the only place she still had to get a report from were the Thundranium mines, but that should change soon enough. She had sent spies to both the capital city and the mines last night, and she was expecting their return at any time now.

And so she left her room and made her way to the meeting hall, where she met O-Celot along with a group of other rebels that were waiting for her.

The spies Pummyra had sent to the city returned first, and while they didn't see Bengali anywhere, they did have something very interesting to share with her; they had managed to get some images on a data-pad, and she didn't like what she was seeing. The pictures showed an attractive human male, perhaps exceedingly so, holding a young Thunderian woman close to him as they climbed down the stairs of Mumm-Ra's great temple. The healer studied the young woman in the picture for a few moments until she was completely sure she was looking at a now grown-up WilyKit.

The medic kept staring at the picture, deep in thought as she tried to understand the image she was looking at. What the hell was Kit doing? Judging by the way she allowed that man to hold her, with his hand firmly and possessively on her hip, and the way her own arm softly circled his waist, it appeared to the healer that WilyKit was not being forced into it, not at all. And that was not counting the expression on WilyKit's face; Pummyra had tried to convince herself of the contrary, but she had to grudgingly admit Kit looked content while being held by that man, maybe a little bit too content in her opinion.

"Who is that man?" Pummyra asked her spies.

"The maid we talked to said that man is Mumm-Ra," the spy informed, lowering her voice a little. "We still have to confirm the information, but apparently he changes to that form when he's visited by kings from other planets; Mumm-Ra calls himself Amon-Ra when he turns into that human, and..."

"Go on," the puma urged.

"The maid said that... well..." the female, a young tiger girl, fidgeted for a moment.

"General Pummyra needs to know," O-Celot reminded her. "Please finish what you were saying."

"She said WilyKit plays the role of Amon-Ra's wife and queen, down to the last detail," the spy finished, lowering her face as she did so. "But I don't believe that, General, not one bit! I know WilyKit! She used to play with me before Mumm-Ra rose to power! She would never do that willingly, I know she wouldn't!"

"And I agree with you," the puma answered. "If WilyKit is alive then her brother might be alive as well. There's a chance Mumm-Ra keeps him caged and is using that as leverage to force her do this."

"What about the look on her face?" another rebel asked as he looked over Pummyra's shoulder to better glance at the picture. "It looks like she's in a trance..."

"She could be under a spell, yes," Pummyra agreed. "But Kit was always good at acting, so we won't know until she tells us why she's doing this."

"Or maybe..." the tiger girl started, but was interrupted by the sudden entrance of the spy group that had been sent to the Thundranium mines.

"General Pummyra, we're back," the spy, an old member of the lynx clan announced, his voice sad and full of grief. "We discovered what happened to Captain Bengali but..."

"It'll be best if they tell her," a second spy offered, gesturing to the three men that stood behind him. "We rescued them from the Thundranium mines."

The puma stood up and walked slowly until she was in front of the newly freed miners. "Do you know what happened to Bengali? Please tell me!"

"He was brought to the mines inside a strange crystal," one of the miners started. "They left him there for weeks."

"He was dead by the time they took him out," the second continued. "What they did to his body..."

"It's best if we left that unsaid," the third miner finished, lowering his face to avoid seeing Pummyra in the eye. "We're sorry."

"We feel for your loss," the first miner offered. "We really are."

The only sound that was heard then was the crack the data-pad Pummyra carried did when it hit the stone floor, breaking into several pieces. Pummyra followed soon after, falling on her knees with eyes full of tears as the impact of hearing that her best friend was dead fully hit her.

An old woman of the puma clan forced every other rebel out of the room and once she did so, walked back to Pummyra's side. The old puma kneeled by the side of the young one, and held her close like she would a child, allowing her to spill her tears freely.

Pummyra did not stop crying for a long time.

0-0

The workshop with the furnace was the only place in the rebel base Pummyra had never entered before; at first she didn't to avoid interrupt Bengali's work and now because just looking at it reminded her of _him_. The training grounds behind her were empty and the only thing that broke the silence was the never ending sound of the hammer coming from inside the furnace room.

She really didn't want to go there; but she had to talk to the Forge-master who was working in the room, both to let him know about something and to request that he make something for her. Taking a deep breath, Pummyra pushed the door of the Furnace room open and let herself in. The workshop was hot, even the air inside it was warm and hard to breath, the light was not scarce thanks to the large open windows on the wall facing her and the glow provided by the furnace's fire.

O-Celot had stopped working to look at her, and she noticed how strange it was to see him working with a small hammer instead of the huge one he normally carried around; the puma glanced at what he was working on and realized he was making armor and by the size of the piece she deduced the Forge-master was making it for himself. That armor would have to wait, though, for she needed him to work with his full ability on what she wanted him to forge for her.

"Can I do something for you, general?" he asked, wiping the sweat of his brow with a dirty cloth.

"I want a sword," Pummyra answered, "It must be the sharpest, strongest sword you've ever made, O-Celot. And I need it in four days. Can you do it?"

"I can do it in three," the forge-master promised. "But why do you need something like that?"

"Because I'm going to kill Mumm-Ra with it," she stated, the tone of her voice leaving no room to argue. "I'll make an important announcement in an hour; make sure you are in the meeting hall by then."

Saying no more, Pummyra left the furnace room.

An hour later...

O-Celot entered the room and found that every rebel was already there; at the front of the hall stood Pummyra who was holding a data-pad in her hands and was plugging it into a very old holo-projector. Once she finished, she turned the projector on and an image of a clearing by the side of a precipice appeared in front of the rebels. The area was rocky and void of vegetation; it was also littered with construction material, hinting that something would be built there soon.

"The mutants plan to build a new landing platform here, in the Sabertooth Pass," she announced. "They have not yet started, but space shuttles have been landing there for a few days already. I find it strange the Mutants are constructing another platform at the side of a precipice, even if the chasm here is not as deep as the one in Crystal Canyon, I still can't understand it.

"That however is not important at all for the moment," Pummyra continued. "What's important is this..."

The healer pressed a button on her data-pad and a picture of an old, bald human with cybernetic enhancements on his face and arms appeared before the rebels.

"Our spies are ignorant of the identity of the human, but they do know he came from the Galaxy of Limbo; they also discovered that Mumm-Ra is sending him away in five days and that he will be in the form of Amon-Ra when he does this.

"That will be our best chance to ambush the wizard and defeat him; I know this thanks to my experiences on Third Earth. I'm fairly sure Mumm-Ra's power is not the same when he changes forms."

"Won't that dignitary from the Galaxy of Limbo help him?" one of the spies that had provided the information asked.

"We'll wait until his ship has taken off," Pummyra answered. "As soon as the ship is out of sight, we attack."

"How many men will go to this mission?" a young Cheetah asked.

"I'll take twenty of you with me," the puma stated, turning off the data pad; once she did this, she looked at the men and women sitting in front of her with determined eyes. "This will be our greatest challenge yet, and it will far more dangerous than the Warbot mission or the warehouse raids we've done in the past. There's a chance we won't survive, but there's also a chance that we can get rid of Mumm-Ra forever. So, will you go with me, will you risk your life for the future of our world?"

The rebels did not hesitate at all and just like when Pummyra invited them to be a part of the rebellion, each and every one of them shouted a fully convinced "Yes!"

0-0

The group of rebels, hiding behind a line of rocks, watched in silence as the silver, bird shaped space ship took off and quickly vanished into sky and just as Pummyra expected, Amon-Ra remained in the rocky area, accompanied by fourteen mutants who were apparently giving him a report about the construction materials that were there. Pummyra, however, didn't expect to see WilyKit standing at the side of the wizard. That detail, however, could be something very good for them, as having another Thundercat in battle would surely be a great advantage.

"I'm sure Kit will help us once she sees that bastard is down," she muttered as she signaled her archers to move to their positions, when she saw they were ready, Pummyra nervously clenched the handle of her new sword and waited until the wizard was on range.

"This is our only chance to win," she said in a low voice, knowing that only the man kneeling at her side would hear her. "We have to defeat him. If we fail…"

"We won't fail, Pummyra," the man asserted. "I'm sure we won't."

"You really have changed, O-Celot," she noted, not taking her eyes off the evil wizard as he slowly made his way to the center of the clearing. "I could really see you leading the rebels if you had to."

"General, what's wrong?" The Forge master asked, concern creeping on his face.

"Mumm-Ra is just too powerful now, and if the arrows don't work I will have to fight him," she whispered, hoping to hide the hint of fear in her words. "O-Celot, if I… fall, I want you to keep the rebellion alive. Promise me."

"You're not going to fall, general," he said, his voice low and pained at the idea of the woman who had helped him so much dying here. O-Celot avoided looking at her as well, as he knew he wouldn't be able to refuse her request if he did so. "Stop talking nonsense."

"Promise me," she insisted as she reached out and held his hand in hers. "Look at me and tell me you will not give up, that you will not stop fighting Mumm-Ra even if I'm not here to lead. I can't count on anyone else right now O-Celot, so please promise me."

The Forge-master crumbled as soon as she touched him and he slowly turned, his eyes met hers, showing him something he was not expecting. Her gaze was steady and firm despite the obvious fear lurking there. He saw something else in those eyes; a strength and determination that in turn gave him hope. Just by looking at her, O-Celot knew for the first time that he would gladly do anything Pummyra asked of him, even die if it meant he could protect her.

"I promise, general," he said with an honest whisper. "I won't stop fighting."

"Thank you," Pummyra answered with a satisfied nod, her attention returning to Mumm-Ra quickly. The wizard was finally where she wanted him. Praying to the ancient kings of Old Thundera, the medic pressed a button on her transmitter, sending the signal to her archers to attack.

Less than a second later, several arrows flew swiftly, and the mutants fell; a fraction of a second after, Amon-Ra was hit by six arrows and he dropped to his knees with a scream of agony.

"We got him!" The puma smiled in triumph. "Let's go finish him!"

0-0

Pummyra, her arm broken and twisted, could not get up from the ground; fear and pain prevented her from even summoning the will to move. She had been careless and all her men had died because of it; and now, as she stared in panic at the vision of death that was Mumm-Ra's warrior form towering above her, she was sure she would be joining Bengali very soon.

"Congratulations, kitten, you played the game well," Mumm-Ra laughed, his voice raising above the strong wind that he had summoned and raged around them. "The game, however, has come to an end."

"Ga-game?" Pummyra managed to ask, ignoring the pain as best as she could.

"You did not believe you were able to escape the mines, intercept that mutant transport, destroy the Warbot and raid my warehouses for so long just because your good luck, did you?" the ever-living wizard mocked. "All that you achieved you did because I let it happen! I allowed the information about the Warbot to fall into your hands, and I let your spies find out about today! All your rebellion achieved, it did because I wanted so! Because I desired to play a game to entertain myself, you were nothing but pawns in my hands since the very beginning!"

"You damn monster! You used us for fun...!" Pummyra shouted at the wizard, her eyes watering as tears started running down her face. "I hate you... I hate you!"

"Flattery won't get you anywhere, my poor filthy cat," Mumm-Ra said with an evil smirk. "I think that instead of killing you here I'll make sure you can relive this moment in your nightmares for an eternity!"

Pummyra, trying to find a last opportunity of salvation, looked at WilyKit, hoping the female twin would finally stop ignoring her pain, hoping she would save her, hoping she would act like a Thundercat. But this hope was quickly destroyed by what Pummyra saw in Kit's eyes: Sadness, fear and... regret?

"I'm afraid she won't help you," the evil wizard laughed, placing a hand on Kit's shoulder. "She knows her brother will suffer if she even tries. And besides, she wouldn't waste her time on trash like you, would you my pet?"

"No, my lord, I-I wouldn't waste my time on t-trash like... her," Kit said in a low, shaky voice; she had closed her eyes to avoid looking at Pummyra, and to avoid looking at Mumm-Ra as well.

"Well said, my dear!" The immortal one praised. "Your brother will surely thank you for keeping him safe."

Saying no more, Mumm-Ra moved his hands in a circular motion, encasing the terrified puma inside a crystal sphere.

Pummyra, panicked beyond words, could do nothing as she started floating inside her prison and a deep sleep overcame her; she thrashed around in an attempt to resist it but it was useless; her eyes started closing, losing the battle against the magically induced stupor.

The last thing Pummyra saw as darkness claimed her was an armored Thunderian hiding behind a rock.

And then, she slept.

**-END-**

Notes:

First of all I want to thank Adam for his help with this one shot; his ideas and patience helped make this story a much better work than what I originally had. Thank you Adam, you rock!

In this One Shot, another side story to Embracing Dark Desires, I wanted to go a little deeper into the rebellion Bengali and Pummyra started, as I felt it was something that could be developed some more. I enjoyed writing this, and I hope you enjoy reading it.

I decided to include Ratar-O because he was, in my opinion, the most cunning and menacing of the Mutants, and I felt he deserved a cameo somewhere. I couldn't include him in the main story, so I thought it would be interesting to use him here.

Now, for the numbered notes:

(1) A striker is a blacksmith apprentice.

(2) The Crystal Canyon appeared in the last issue of the "Reclaiming Thundera" miniseries. It is the location where Lion-O fights against Grune for the title of Lord of the Thundercats.

(3) The Warbot appeared in back in the first season episode "Return to Thundera". This powerful machine of war was one of the things that really made you think the Mutants could actually challenge the Thundercats and win; I started to think and it made sense to me that Slithe or Vultureman would want to have one of these robots to deal with the rebels, so that is why I included it here.

(4) Jagara appeared near the end of the cartoon series, she was an old female member of the Jaga clan who appeared to have a lot of knowledge about many things regarding Old Thundera.

(5) The Gyroscope… Oh, Lord… the Gyroscope… In my opinion a very lousy idea from the cartoon's last season; it was some rare machine that kept New Thundera's gravity stable. It conflicted with basic logic, with the rest of the timeline set in the Wildstorm comics (where it was completely ignored) and with the events of Embracing Dark Desires, so I had to mention somewhere that the Gyroscope was not needed anymore. This one shot seemed the best place to do that.


End file.
